When using the Mac along with the other systems I just pull it forward a little so it’s in easier reach. The little rolling desk was a recent addition because there just wasn’t any way I could fit a big 27″ screen into the current setup and doing an overhaul was not part of the plans I had, certainly not in the current space and certainly not in its current location. The next overhaul will be huge and will be “elsewhere”. Insiders will know what I’m talking about. Anyone else, you can just keep guessing what I mean by that.

As explained before, without details, the real reason for the sudden lateral inclusion of Apple into the home office has very little to do with OSX or Apple itself but has everything to do with iOS development for the iPhone and iPad. The Mac just came along in that context as a requirement.

Of course, since I now have a 27″ i7 iMac in the home office it made sense to hook up the Wacom Intuos 4 and use the many pixels on the screen for photography fun. After all it supports a few more pixels than the 24″ monitors hooked up to all the rest of the heavy metal in the office.

You’re not seeing double. Those are two keyboards there. Well, I’ve got two hands, don’t I? Unfortunately the little BlueTooth keyboard just didn’t work for me. The location of the cursor keys, their size, and the lack of the other keys was driving me nuts. So I replaced the keyboard with something more regular. I first tried using one of the Logitech Dinovo’s on the Mac but had some mixed results and didn’t like the keyboard remapping. Since I do like the keys on the Apple keyboards I decided to get another Pro keyboard and hook it to the main workstation. That way I don’t have to continually switch between the different layouts and frankly, if you ask me point blank I will say that as much as I love the Dinovo keyboards, I feel my speed on the Apple Pro keyboards is a touch faster. The BlueTooth keyboard may find a new friend in pairing with the iPad, I’m sure.

Finally, for the last image, the stationary position of the Mac-desk when I move it out of the way. Yes, it’s close to some of the heavy metal servers under the desks there but the desk is light enough and mobile enough that I can easily move it out of the way when needed. The cables running to the desk have enough length (neatly covered by the bottom of the desk) and of course some velcro was harmed in the process of putting it all together and making sure the cables would not get caught under any wheels.

After various attempts at backups I’ve settled on a simple approach. A Western Digital MyBook Studio 2TB with Firewire 800 and Time Machine. Other important files, other than a full system backup, are being synchronized over the network to the servers.

Some further details; yes you can use both Synergy and Input Director on the same machine. Those won’t conflict with each other and as long as you configure things in a way that works for your multi-monitor multi-computer layout there’s really no problems at all. I prefer using my Logitech Performance MX mouse via Synergy on the Mac because the other thing I really dislike about mixing systems that are so different is that I can’t get the mouse speed and acceleration to be identical on both. Using Synergy that problem has been “fixed”.

Oh, that thing is an Archos 5 Internet Tablet. Android based media thingie… bought it as a replacement for the MP3 player that suddenly died a day before I flew to SF so there wasn’t much time, not much choice, and that’s what I ended up with. Overkill. 🙂

Of course I knew that. Even did that in the 3 weeks that I was waiting for the Mac to actually be ready to be picked up. And while everything ran stable and without problems, there certainly were problems that did not occur on the real Mac.

In this particular case it was the debugger in XCode that refused to show some nested structures in an object hierarchy. Same code, same tests, same breakpoints, same data, the Hackintosh had a problem and the real Mac didn’t. So clearly, I would never recommend to a developer to use a Hackintosh unless they have some real hardware next to it to really test if something acts up.

Since both operate on different ports they won’t clash and as long as the layout of screen edges don’t overlap (or if they do and there’s only one system on a certain edge) it ends up feeling quite natural as if it’s just one of them doing all the work. Though the only reason I use Synergy is because of the Mac. Switching between radically different mouse speeds and “feel” is a real hassle so I just use the mouse through Synergy and the keyboard local to the Mac.

And just to keep the “feel” of the keyboards the same I’ve actually added an Apple keyboard to the main workstation. 🙂 Doing the Dinovo’s on the Mac felt a bit odd with the keys being where they are and all. I must say, if I had to pick between the full size flat-key Mac “pro” keyboard and my beloved Dinovo’s I’d pick the Apple keys. They feel just a bit flatter, the travel distance between keys is just a little better and I sense I get a few more characters per second out of it. The only thing I miss (which I’m sure will pass in a few weeks time) is the context-menu button which isn’t on the Apple keyboards which makes me sometimes hit the wrong key out of habit.

Synergy has a beta 1.4x out that is supposed to play better with Windows 7. I just found out about it today and will try it. Synergy works OK for me in Windows 7 except when for UAC issues then I have to use a standard mouse to actuate the controls in the UAC window.